


From Sasha's Personal Journal: On Women's Day

by vega_voices



Category: Original Work, shadows in the spotlight
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:12:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I never considered myself to be a feminist when I was growing up. To me, feminists were those women out of history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Sasha's Personal Journal: On Women's Day

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the music of Queensryche, Iron Maiden, Queen, Metallica, Judas Priest, and more - Shadows in the Spotlight is the story of Marc Gadling, a young musician who is navigating the waters of the emerging metal scene in Los Angeles, the gay counter culture in the city, and the rising fears of what came to be known as HIV/AIDS. It tells the story of his family - the brother who loves him unconditionally, the lover who dies too young, the best friend who is the silent sentinel, and the young prodigy who proves that even after death, there is life. 
> 
> Here's how it works. Shadows in the Spotlight is available for pre-order on pubslush.com. Pubslush is a social publisher that allows the reader, not the editor, to chose what is read. Authors place the book on the site, and you, the reader take a gander. If you like what you read, place a pre-order as a promise, a promise that you will purchase this book once it is made available to buy. In addition, for every book that is published, pubslush donates a book to child literacy programs around the world. The thing is, this book cannot get published without your pre-order. If you're wondering what you're getting, Shadows in the Spotlight has a proven track record. An excerpt was published in the 2010 QSalt Lake Literary edition and it won the Honorable Mention in the 53rd Annual Utah Arts Council Fiction Writing Compeition (2011). 
> 
> For the past 30 days, support has been growing. But it isn't enough. 959 preorders are still needed in the next three months to secure publication. If you like your books peppered with heavy hitting doses of rock music, fairy tales of boys who make it big, and stories of how family is formed through passion and not blood, take note of what Shadows in the Spotlight has for you. 
> 
> Pre-order here: http://www.pubslush.com/book/view/198

I never considered myself to be a feminist when I was growing up. To me, feminists were those women out of history. They didn't matter to me. Where were the feminists when I was going through what I was going through in school? Where were they when I told people what was going on and no one listened? That was my mindset. Feminism was a bad word. As a terrified sixteen year old kid, I didn't realize that the nurse at Planned Parenthood who helped me get the services I needed was a feminist. I didn't realize the doctor who hugged me after he was done discharging me was a feminist. I had no clue that the guy who took my hand and led me away from the world I had let myself get sucked in to was a feminist.

When I was about nineteen, I was hanging out on the crew bus during a show, and one of the women on the road crew was reading Judith Butler's Excitable Speech - A Politics of the Performative. I was this dumb 19 year old kid who had dropped out of school and when she was in school, she didn't pay much attention. But I liked to read. So, Katy let me borrow her book. I'll be honest, I didn't understand 99% of what was going on, but my world was opened. It hit me that night, on a bus somewhere between Reno and Salt Lake, what feminism really was.

In 2004, I became the very first woman signed to Skid Records. They'd had women in bands before, but never a front woman/singer songwriter type. It wasn't that they were actively discriminating, but they were in fact, ignorant. When I signed my contract, Craig (the CEO) came in to talk to me about what they'd missed. See, there weren't a lot of metal type chicks who weren't being recruited already by the other companies and they just didn't see the market in it. He apologized and asked me to help him change that. No longer dumbfounded, I told him they had made a mistake and now, we have twelve female fronted bands with the label and most of us are very successful and I am the only one who fits into the "long black hair, pale skin, metal chick" look that is so popular with the record companies right now.

But my history isn't what's important. Yes, now at 33, I know that feminism isn't about women, it's about equality. It's about destroying the gender binaries and demanding an understanding that all of us are different. It's about creating a dialog with our daughters. At 16, I was so sure my devoutly Catholic mother would kick me out rather than accept that I'd had an abortion, I ran away. If we'd found a way to communicate, I'd have known that she would have put her arms around me. No, she didn't believe me at first when I tried to tell her what was going on at school, but confronted with reality, she'd have come around. She's said that to me. Now, as a mother of a daughter myself, I can only hope that Adry and I keep the lines of communication open.

Today I did a Mom-Daughter thing at Adry's school. Yes, I am finally home from touring. I went in and stood there with the other mothers over punch and cookies. It was the usual mix and mesh. A couple of lesbian parents (this is Austin after all) and a couple of pierced dye jobs like me and of course the typical suburban moms with their sweater sets and one inch heels. In moments like that I always feel self-conscious. How is it that I am deserving of being with all these women? But to a point, we were all talking politics. Adry's in a pretty liberal public school, but you can't account for all parental politics, and yes, the subject of contraception came up. And this woman standing next to me who could have been a poster child for botox shook her head and said, "We're conservative. We're pro-life. But I'll be damned if Rick Santorum is going to tell my daughter what to do with her body." She looked at me then, eye to eye. Sweater set to faded tank top. And just nodded. She didn't say anything, but she nodded.

Most of us moms there worked and we talked to our daughters about our jobs. There were the secretaries and a couple of doctors and the athletic trainer got a lot of oohs and ahhs. I talked about being a woman in the music industry and how hard it is to be out there in the public. One of Adry's friends came up afterward and hugged me. That was when it hit me:

International Women's Day isn't about the past. It's about the future. It's about making sure our daughters have an easier road than we did. It's about knowing that Adry has the same chances to succeed not just as the boys in her class, but the other girls too. It's about knowing that my son will not only respect women, but respect himself within that respect of women.


End file.
